A Missing Childhood
by eternallychosen
Summary: Dawn makes a wish that'd she would have had a better childhood... [Blah...my muse is on vacation for this piece. Sorry!]


Disclaimer: I don't own anything...it all belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, or whoever owns this Buffy stuff  
  
Author's note: well...as you can tell, I haven't written anything in quite a while. Sadly my muse has left me for 'A Gift from the Forgotten Day' but I created a new, hopefully nicer muse. And as I was reading some kiddo stories by gidgetgirl, my new muse (who turns out to be very nice indeed) told me to start a Dawn childhood fanfic! So here goes nothing! I love my new muse! :0)  
  
Oh and another thing: this takes place in season six. It replaces "older and far away" (Buffy's birthday ep in S6) and in this story...the monks gave dawn no fake memories of her childhood (I know, so sad, but I did it for a reason!) please review!  
  
A Missing Childhood: Chapter 1  
  
It was about five o' clock when Dawn finally came home from school that Thursday. As usual, her grades in math weren't all that great, so Mr. Yoshani wanted to discuss her recent math test.  
  
"I'm home," she called out, not really expecting anyone to answer. Dawn was used to coming home to an empty house, but it had become routine for her to announce her presence.  
  
"In here Dawnie," Willow answered back from the living room. Dawn kicked off her doc martens by the door, slung her backpack on top of her shoes, and shuffled towards the couch. There she saw both Buffy and Willow hunched over something.  
  
Dawn leaned forward of the back of the couch and asked, "Whatchya lookin' at?"  
  
Buffy's head bobbed up and she smiled. "Oh, just some dorky pictures of me when I was a kid."  
  
Willow nodded in agreement. "You want to come look too?" she offered, scooting over on the couch. Dawn shrugged and flopped down in the spot that had been made for her. Buffy turned the page of the photo album, and Dawn leaned in to get a closer look at the page.  
  
"Oh god," Buffy groaned, "Why did I insist on being a sunflower at the first grade costume party?" She carefully ran a fingertip across the edge of the picture. Buffy was in first grade, and she was wearing a green and yellow felt costume and holding a watering can.  
  
"Can I see?" Dawn asked. Buffy handed Dawn the picture and dawn stifled a laugh. "This would make great blackmail," she joked. Buffy forced a smile and snatched the picture back, placing it in its rightful place.  
  
"It's cute..." Willow offered her opinion. "One time, I was a banana for Halloween, and Xander was a monkey; he spent the whole night chasing me down the street screeching like a dying cat!"  
  
"A dying cat?" Buffy raised an eyebrow and grinned.  
  
"Yes, he was very scary. Well, from a banana's point of view at least."  
  
"What about candy? That's the whole point of Halloween!" Dawn exclaimed, suddenly feeling an urge for a Snickers.  
  
"I kinda lost all of it while running for my banana life," Willow sighed.  
  
Buffy shook her head. "So sad."  
  
As Buffy and Willow became engaged in a 'childhood memories' conversation, Dawn reached for the picture album and flipped through the laminated pages. There was a full decorated page of Buffy's first day of kindergarten. She was a tiny little girl with a broad smile, and she had on a pink flower dress, pink gelly sandals to match, and of course two uneven blonde pigtails. Dawn smiled. These must be the cute genes that the monks gave me, Dawn thought sarcastically. She flipped the page. Fancy ice skating stickers bordered the page and two pictures were in the center. One was a newspaper clipping of Nancy Kerrigan and the other was a photograph of Buffy at age seven. She donned a sequenced ice skating costume and was in the middle of an ice rink. Again, Dawn turned the page. Stickers and doodles of birthday cakes and party hats were scattered across the page. Three pictures were glued in a diagonal line, overlapping each other slightly. They were all birthday scenes from when Buffy was eight- as dawn could tell by the number of candles on the cake. The center photo was of Buffy and Celia, both baring toothless grins behind a pink birthday cake. Dawn furrowed her brow. I never had a birthday when I was little...She turned the pages, one by one, and Buffy's innocent childhood flashed before her eyes. Page by page, Buffy got older. Throughout the entire album, Dawn didn't see one picture of herself; this upset her. Even though she knew she had no childhood, she thought the monks could have at least given her a fake one.  
  
Dawn set the album on the coffee table and stood up. She looked over to Buffy and Willow who were giggling about something and stated, "I'm gonna go upstairs, I have a lot of homework to do."  
  
"Okay Dawnie. I'll be patrolling later, so I'll leave you money for pizza," Buffy replied.  
  
"Have fun," Willow smiled. Dawn forced a smile in return and headed for the front door to grab her backpack. She then made her way up the stairs and to her room.  
  
Dawn sat at her desk staring at the sheet of math problems. Her mind was still preoccupied with having no childhood. "It's not fair," she thought aloud. Her thoughts raced with anger and regret. She wished she could have had a childhood. "I hate being the key. I don't unlock anything anymore anyways." She pounded the desk, causing her pencil to roll towards her. "It's no use; I can't change it anyways," she reasoned, starting on her math. After jotting down all the answers and making sure to show her work on a separate sheet of paper, Dawn warily got into her pajamas and crawled into bed.  
  
Dawn dreaded going to school the next morning, but having Buffy as an older sister isn't easy. Buffy wouldn't take the 'I-don't-feel-well' excuse that morning, so Dawn was forced to go sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair on top of the hellmouth and listen to her teachers drone on about mid-terms.  
  
In the middle of math, a student aide came in the classroom with a slip from the counselor. The meek, young girl silently handed the pass to Mr. Yoshani and after reading the note he nodded then announced in his thick Japanese accent, "Dawn Summers, the counselor would like to see you..." He glanced at the paper, "...now." A sigh of relief escaped Dawn's lips as she grabbed her books, scurried to the front of the classroom, and accepted the green slip from Mr. Yoshani. As she walked out the door to the counselor's office, she read over the green piece of paper.  
  
"Funny, I don't remember asking to speak to any counselor," she thought aloud. She finally reached the counselors office and knocked on the door, not wanting to barge in on another student. She heard a faint "come in" and turned the knob while balancing her books in the other arm. A pretty woman with brown curly hair and sparkling eyes was sitting at a well-organized desk.  
  
"You must be Dawn," the woman greeted her with a smile. "I'm Miss Johansen, the new counselor here at Sunnydale High."  
  
"Am I in-"  
  
"Oh, no, not at all! I was just looking at random files, and came across yours. You seemed like someone who knows her way around this place and I wanted to talk to some regular students today along with the troubled ones." The smile on Miss Johansen's face didn't fade in the least. "Oh please, take a seat!" she offered. Dawn slid into the chair across from the desk, neatly setting her books on her lap.  
  
"So, what's it like here? Any...good or bad things about this school that make it unique?" She asked.  
  
Nah, we're on top of a hellmouth, but that's nothing unusual, Dawn thought. "Umm no, it's just like any regular school I guess," Dawn lied.  
  
"Ok, well that's cool. So tell me about yourself. What's your family like?"  
  
"Well I live with my older sister Buffy, our parents are divorced, and my mom-she recently-she died a while ago. But I'm coping...and then there's Willow and Xander; they're Buffy's best friends and they hang around a lot. We consider them family." Dawn felt strange that she was spilling all this information out to someone she'd never met before, but it was like she was forced to. Must be some counselor reverse psychology or something.  
  
"That sounds like a pretty good life-well except for your mother dying...I'm sorry to hear that. Do you sometimes wish she could come back?" The counselor fingered her necklace.  
  
"Well yeah, but I've learned to manage. It's hard but...I'm doing ok."  
  
"Yes you are. You know I am here for you if you need to talk other times..."  
  
"Yeah." Dawn didn't' feel very comfortable about talking about her dead mother anymore. "Well is there anything you'd change in your life right now if you could?" She asked Dawn, still fiddling with her necklace. "After all, I'm a counselor-my job is to try and make your life easier.  
  
"Yeah..." again, Dawn felt compelled to spill her deepest wishes. "Well I do wish-"  
  
"Yes?" Miss Johansen leaned forward.  
  
"It sounds stupid, but I wish I could have had a childhood, well I mean-a better childhood." Dawn shrugged, looking at her feet.  
  
"That's a nice wish, it's not stupid at all," she insisted.  
  
Again Dawn shrugged. "I-I should be getting back to class."  
  
The counselor smiled. "You do that. And be careful what you wish for." She winked and Dawn forced a smile as she walked out of the door.  
  
"It may come true..." she added after Dawn left, her eyes flashing. She played with the silver chain of her necklace that held a blue stone with red flecks. 


End file.
